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Updated: May 18, 2025
As soon as the little skipper had recovered his faculties a little he listened, and hearing nothing of their pursuers, struck a match, a box of which he had fortunately concealed in his robe, and looked to see whether there was a spring inside the door. He failed to find one, however, and he and Frobisher exchanged glances full of apprehension.
The Englishman stood looking down at the other for a few moments, and in that brief interval found time to notice that his feet were soiled and plastered with fresh clay, which had certainly not been on them when Frobisher had left him half an hour previously.
Frobisher found Admiral Ting lying on the floor of his cabin, his hands lashed behind him, and senseless from a severe cutlass or sword cut across the forehead. He had evidently been cut down while in the conning-tower, and had been brought to the cabin and there secured and flung down; for the Englishman had noticed a trail of bloodstains on the deck on his way to Ting's quarters.
"But," he continued, as Wong-lih turned toward the door, "there is one thing which I think we have both forgotten, and which may prove an insuperable objection to my joining the Chinese Navy." "And that is?" enquired the admiral, raising his eyebrows. "That I have practically no knowledge of the Chinese language," replied Frobisher.
But shortly after the incident above referred to, Frobisher noticed that the stars were becoming obscured, and about two o'clock in the morning rain began to fall, softly at first, then increasing in volume until, in half an hour after the beginning, it seemed as though the very bottom had fallen out of the heavens, and thus allowed the water pent up there to fall upon the earth in an overwhelming cataract.
Once fairly settled on board the Chih' Yuen, although there turned out to be an enormous amount of work to be done, and numerous little matters to be attended to before the cruiser could be said to be thoroughly "shipshape", Frobisher found time to look round him a little, and to cast his eyes over the remainder of the northern fleet lying off the city of Tien-tsin.
The steamer undoubtedly was either one of the transports, or the gunboat sent by the Japanese to take possession of the island part of the very expedition that Frobisher would now have been engaged in fighting, had it not been for the terrible catastrophe of the Chih' Yuen being cast away.
Seeing, then, that there was no time to be lost, Frobisher gave orders for the boats to be hoisted out, as many men as they could safely hold being told off to each, with instructions that, upon their cargoes being landed, they were to be brought back to the ship by a crew selected among themselves, for the remainder of the men.
There's good, sheltered anchorage there; and, if we have the luck we deserve, we shall be able to unload the stuff without fear of interruption." "Ah!" remarked Frobisher, and relapsed into deep thought.
The ore that the ships carried proved to be but worthless rock, and from the commercial point of view the whole expedition was a failure. Frobisher was never able to repeat his attempt to find the North-West Passage. In its existence his faith remained as firm as ever.
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